Collection agency vs. Chihuahua

Here's a fun story about the perils of vacation rentals. We have a great little place in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, kind of a trendy and eclectic part of town and everything is lovely. One afternoon we return from a day on the town to find that someone has come into our apartment and left a formal looking letter taped to the computer. It's all in Dutch and at first I think maybe it's the gardener's invoice or something. I was immediately really creeped out that someone had been in our place. I'm a huge fan of privacy and someone coming into our dwelling without our knowledge or permission really did not sit well. Thanks to Google translate we quickly discover that this letter is not from a gardener, but from a collection agency. Things quickly go downhill after this realization. The letter is written to our landlord, the owner of the home, informing him of the following things:

1. They have entered the apartment with a police officer.
2. They are charging him 500 euros for having to force the door because nobody was home.
3. They have inventoried the contents of the home and will be repossessing them forthwith unless he pays the debt immediately.

The first major problem was that a police officer came in and Peanut was there, so I know some Dutch cop was probably bitten. The second problem is that OUR computers and various other items are included in the inventory of things to be repossessed, presumably because they have no idea that the property is being rented and therefore assume that all the contents belong to the landlord. My purse had been rifled through, including my wallet. I don't care if you're the damn CIA, stay out of my FREAKING purse or I will cut you.

Okay, so we call the office of the collection agency to inform them that we are renters and find out what the heck is going on. To their credit, I'm sure that people call in all the time with excuses and lies and when Bryan tells the secretary our story she starts laughing in an I-find-your-fake-American-accent-and-load-of-crap-story-very-dubious kind of way. Apparently Bryan's very real American accent must sound like the machinations of a dutch debt dodger.

Our next step is to call the landlord. He's very casual about the whole thing and comes over at his leisure to collect the letter. He's irritatingly cavalier about the situation, like it's an everyday occurrence for the police to enter your home and make lists of your things to take. He tells us some story about how his scooter was stolen and he stopped paying the insurance and he's in some sort of battle of wills with the collection agency. Might be true, might not, I'm still on the fence. He assures us the matter will be resolved post-haste.

The matter is not resolved post-haste.

Several days later I'm just starting to shake the unpleasant sensation of having my space invaded and time is healing the horrors of having my purse gone through when a surly looking man from the collection agency comes to the door with a clipboard and brusque demeanor. He has come to deliver another list of the things that were itemized and a bill for the privilege of having the locks breached and our sense of security summarily squashed. He starts acting like a Russian mafioso, telling us that we should pay our rent to HIM instead of the landlord and asking us questions about why we are living here and how can we prove that we're renters etc. He was also telling us that they might end up taking our stuff anyway and that we could get it back if we showed receipts proving that they belonged to us and not the landlord (why of course! Let me just grab those from the filing cabinet full of proofs-of-purchase that I bring with me on every transatlantic journey). I had kept my cool up to this point but it suddenly dawned on me that this was probably the very man who had intrusively pawed his way through my sacred valise. MY PURSE. I was seized with a sudden indignation and told that man to go to hell. I knew our landlord had already set up a payment schedule with the company because we'd been in contact with them and it was obvious that we were renters at this point and had nothing to do with this debt. Anyway the story ends with the man leaving with his tail tucked and after a call to the company office we confirm that the matter had already been resolved. The lesson I learned is that I should leave my purse closer to Peanut's bed next time I go out.